


Broken Into Shards

by HapSky



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Aliens, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Self-Discovery, Shiro (Voltron) Has a Clone, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-17
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-24 13:03:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14955207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HapSky/pseuds/HapSky
Summary: This universe is so big, and he is so tiny in it. Yet he is part of a team that is supposed to save this huge universe, no matter how small they are themselves. When Shiro thinks about his teammates, his friends, his heart clenches painfully. He's just the clone of "Shiro", just a copy of their beloved friend. He doesn’t even know the "Shiro" he's supposed to be.He feels Ezor shifting on top of him, feels her lips ghosting over his cheek, a light peck tentatively pressed to his skin. "Sweetheart," she whispers, and her voice is low, but full of sympathy and sorrow, "only because you vanish… it doesn't mean that you won't be there anymore."Shiro feels how she stands up, how she lets go of his hands, and hears her stepping away from him. But he can't see, can't tell where she goes—whether she left, or still lingers around.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my two entries for the [Blessed and Possessed Zine](https://bapshirozine.tumblr.com/)! The other one is [What Else Is Beautiful](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14955488).  
> The zine itself sadly had to face several struggles, and didn't become what it intended to become, but hey! The good thing about it is, now you can [download it for free](https://bapshirozine.tumblr.com/post/174547337339/blessed-and-possessed-zine)!
> 
> I love to create new worlds and species, and also love to explore a character's personality, so this became a little bit of both. I hope you enjoy!

It's a strange planet. Shiro has seen lots of different landscapes—back on earth, but on the various planets they had freed from Zarkon's reign as well. Rocky fields with canyons and cliffs, a place made of stone and wind. He has seen geysers, volcanoes, a desert of sand and a desert of ice. Vast oceans, deep seas and high skies. Endless forests and jungles, majestic mountains and beautiful meadows.  
  
He has never seen a place like this though. Made of trash. The streets, the buildings, even the so called "forest"—the trees are huge piles of garbage. They have a similar appearance to stalagmites, they look thin and bristle, as if they would crumble with the slightest touch. There is no vegetation on this planet, at least none that consists of plants. Strangely enough, it doesn't smell like a dumpster at all.   
  
"It's petrified," the small creature leading them through the village's alleys tells them. It seems Shiro had spoken out loud. "The smell died a long time ago," they explain, though it doesn't explain anything at all. Shiro doesn't ask any further.   
  
It's glowing, the little creature. A soft gentle blue behind a body of white, like a matt glass lantern lit with blue fire. It has the form of a dog. But with three tails, and six legs, and one pair of legs bends outwards, and it has horns instead of ears, and three eyes, and a flat snout. On second thought, it doesn't really look like a dog.   
  
"What's your name?" Shiro asks while they squeeze through the slim valleys the village is carved into. Like a city build into the walls of a metal trash canyon.   
  
"Vvi," the creature answers. "I can be summed up as Vvi. It means to wander and to return." Once again, it's explanation isn't helping Shiro understand at all.   
  
"I'm Lance!" Lance calls from the back. "The big one is Hunk," Hunk waves at the mention of his name, "and the small one is Pidge!" Pidge nods her greeting.   
  
"I'm Keith," Keith mutters.   
  
Vvi stops and turns around, looks at each of them. Its gaze lands on Shiro, then it sways its three tails, blinks its three empty eyes, and continues walking. "Your kind has a strange way of seeing each other."

  
  
Vvi's kind, in return, has a weird way of showing gratitude. The Paladins of Voltron freed their planet from the Galra, and in return, they sleep together. They had asked the Paladins to accompany them into a huge hall underground, and to sleep with them. Many creatures, all glowing in slightly different lights and colours, are curling themselves into small dents in the ground. Beds, Shiro thinks, those must be their beds. No pillows and no blankets, just a dent in the metal ground. It's smooth, the surface, even though he can make out the lines of where junk melts into junk.   
  
The lights inside the creatures don't go out when they sleep. Shiro realises he almost expected them to, like a candlelight being blown out, but they don't even dim. He looks around in wonder. Hunk doesn't fit into the dent, but he's three times the size of the natives, so that's no surprise. He already is fast asleep, and so is Lance, sprawled out on top of his friend, head pillowed on one of Hunk's shoulders. When Shiro turns around, he sees Pidge nestling her head into Keith's lap. Keith sleeps sitting upright, legs and arms crossed. When he notices Pidge, he stretches his legs out to make some room for her. He doesn't even fully wake up. Shiro can't find sleep, though.   
  
"Ruu," one of the creatures—a silvery grey glowing one, missing one of their legs—hesitantly hops closer to Shiro. "I'm Miee, may I ask to share light with you?"   
  
Shiro nods, it is nice to have company. He lays down, and Miee crawls onto his chest. It blinks at him with what seems to be sorrow in their eyes. He pats Miee's head in an attempt to console it.   
  
"Ruu," Miee whispers in a hushed voice and nestles their head into the crook of Shiro's neck, "I'm sorry."   
  
"What for?" Shiro asks confused. Nothing has been done to him that Miee would have to apologise for.   
  
"You're Ruu," they say. "You're void of so much colour, as if a past piece of you has been broken out of your being." Miee swishes their tails and hums. "Let me share, I'm Miee, and you're Ruu."

  
  
With Miee's company comes sleep, and Shiro dreams. In his dream, he awakes in a chamber, his head hurts and he feels dizzy and lost. He sees purple light and sees Galra soldiers and sees his reflection in the chamber across the hallway. He has seen this once before. He is on a Galra ship, after Voltron had defeated Zarkon, and he must escape.   
  
When Shiro runs, he can't feel his legs. When he pilots the escape pod, he doesn't feel his arms. He can't hear, everything is silent. When he crashes onto a planet of ice and snow and endless winter's cold, he doesn't notice the frost freezing his limbs. When he turns around, his mind feels like floating vaguely outside his body. He feels distant, as if everything isn't quite real. When he falls, he sees silvery grey light glowing in the dark sky.   
  
"You're Ruu," he mumbles to himself. "You're void of so much colour…"   
  
Pain suddenly crashes into his body, agony seethes in his veins, his gasps shatter in his lungs. Panic paralyses his mind. His vision blurs, and when he blinks, he sees pieces of burning metal on steaming ground. He hears shrieks and screeches, feels hot blood dripping down and cold sweat coating his skin. When he looks around, he sees Miee.   
  
"It may not be the most pleasant one, some even call it ugly. My colour," Miee watches the world around them sink into ashen chaos. "But it still is my past, my light. All what happened and will happen because I exist, and all that did not happen and won't happen because I'm here. Everything my being caused is my light. This pain, it's me, and no one can take that from me."   
  
On the verge of Shiro's dream slipping away, Miee looks at him. Again, with sorrow shining in their eyes. "Who broke your being into shards?"


	2. Chapter 2

They hadn't been completely wrong, Shiro thinks on their long way back to the Castle, through peaceful valleys Shiro remembers burning. It hasn't been his reflection, it had been another "him". He hasn't escaped a place he had been brought to against his will, he had been breaking out a place he came from. He isn't void of a past, him existing just had started far later than his cognitive memory tells him it did. But the creature he had shared sleep with, it felt sorry for his emotional past to be so little. Ruu means incomplete, and Miee means to carry a lot of emotion, they had said. Being void of colour and carrying too many colours. Ruu and Miee.  
  
Shiro breathes in deeply, and concentrates on his steps so he won't trip over bits of trash. They hadn't been completely wrong, when Miee had assumed his being had been broken into shards. It is not that he is a part of something that was whole before. He is not a shard, he is an entire copy, filled with his original's memories but also filled with emotions the original hasn't experienced. It doesn't make him incomplete, or less, like Miee had thought. There isn't something missing, it had never existed at all. Shiro doesn't think that Miee would understand what a clone is, if he tried to explain it to them with words. He isn't a person on his own, right? He has no colour to claim to be his own... right? Miee's kind doesn't see the history of memory shining within people, but the history of emotion. He wonders, if he'd be one of them, one of the lantern creatures, would there be a light glowing inside him at all?  
  
It's the night after their leave, and once more, Shiro can't find sleep. However, no one is here, no one's company to lure him to slumber. He wanders the halls of the Castle. He can't see the endlessness behind the high walls, but he knows it's there. This universe is so big, and he is so tiny in it. Yet he is part of a team that is supposed to save this huge universe, no matter how small they are themselves. When Shiro thinks about his teammates, his friends, his heart clenches painfully. He's just the clone of "Shiro", just a copy of their beloved friend. He doesn’t even know the "Shiro" he's supposed to be.

He slumps down onto the floor, leans against the wall with a heavy sigh. Is he so much alike his original that they didn't even notice? When he's a clone, and when there are even more clones, he thinks, then what is left of him that's "him"? Is the "Shiro" he saw in the chamber—still caged in a pod, still asleep—is he like him? Would every clone be just exactly like him? Where's the difference between them? And between them and the original they are a copy of? What if-

"Gotcha!" Shiro hears, and simultaneously strong hands slam his body into the floor with brute force, twist his arms above his head in one quick sharp motion. It hurts, Shiro gasps in pain at the sudden impact. "You're an easy catch, kitty!" a voice chuckles above him. He can feel someone holding him down, feels a weight on his hips and fingers bruising his wrists. But he can only feel, he can't see. It's like being tackled to the ground by a ghost. A strong and heavy ghost.

"Who's there?!" he shouts and tries to get his arms free, but the fingers just tighten and the bodiless voice chuckles amused. Then one of Lotor's generals appears on top of him, grinning.

"I'm Ezor!" she tells him. "Gotta capture you," she says happily. Her task turned out simpler than she had anticipated. Shiro hasn't really been that careful about keeping his guard up, and he hadn't put up much of a resistance either, he seemed to have been deep in thought. He really had been easy to catch.

Shiro stops struggling against her steel hard grip, and sighs a deep exhausted sigh. "Okay, fine. Whatever."

"What do you mean, 'fine'?" Ezor asks, a wary expression turning her smile into a frown. No one just accepts being kidnapped like that.

Shiro keeps very silent. Ezor can see a tiredness tracing his face that has nothing to do with sleep deprivation or a rough long day of fighting. She squints at him, stares straight into his grey eyes. She's been told her stare is creepy, too blunt and direct and open. Shiro just looks at her, not averting his gaze.

Ezor has seen that tiredness before. It's a heavy and suffocating feeling, making your eyes burn with tears that won't fall, and your limbs ache from merely existing. It's a tiredness that leaves your mind void of all energy at the end of the day. Shiro's expression is that of someone who just wants to disappear. Ezor knows, she's seen it often enough in the mirror.

"You just want to vanish," she mutters, still observing Shiro with rapt attention. Shiro closes his eyes, and doesn't say a word. His lips though twitch downwards with uncomfortable distress.

"You just want to vanish," she says, and the pained sadness of her small smile unexpectedly makes place for a cunning little grin. "Just like this," she purrs and disappears and Shiro can't see her, again.

He's still not saying anything. His mind is back to relentlessly overthinking things. Does he want to disappear? Is it okay for him to just disappear? He's just a fake copy of his teammates' beloved one after all. They are better off without him anyway. So he can disappear, if he wants to. It's okay, right? If he can choose, he'll choose to be a missing friend over being an unwanted bother…

He feels Ezor shifting on top of him, feels her lips ghosting over his cheek, a light peck tentatively pressed to his skin. "Sweetheart," she whispers, and her voice is low, but full of sympathy and sorrow, "only because you vanish… it doesn't mean that you won't be there anymore."

Shiro feels how she stands up, how she lets go of his hands, and hears her stepping away from him. But he can't tell where she goes—whether she left, or still lingers around.   
  


Ezor indeed still lingers around, he learns painfully, when he gets thrown out of bed the next morning—as harshly as he got thrown to the ground the night before. This time, Ezor doesn't try to keep him down though. As soon as Shiro gets up she is gone.

She is gone, as well as half of his usual clothes. Some socks, his shirt. A little note is there instead.  _ You've got a terrible taste in fashion, kitty. _

Shiro smiles at that. He can imagine her saying those words with a chiding tone in her chipper voice. He could imagine her suggesting other clothes for him to wear, despite not having any better a fashion taste than him. Still… he is missing some socks and his shirt now.

He doesn't regret putting on his set of altean clothes instead of his regular ones, when Lance is cheering for him during breakfast—finally not being the only one wearing their lion slippers. Allura even compliments him and Coran nods in approval as well. It makes Shiro smile sheepishly. He never got any compliments about his looks from the Alteans before.

 

Pidge isn't the only one now as well—the only one spending the night sleeping in one of the many halls of the castle. Ezor had locked him out of his room. Shiro doesn't know how she did it. Or why. He ends up snuggling close to Pidge, he had encountered her while roaming around, and she had invited him to keep her company.

When the green light of her computer screen starts to hurt to look at, Shiro closes his eyes and concentrates on the clicking sounds and Pidge's steady breathing. The typing noises of her swift fingers dancing over the keyboard are a soothing rhythm to doze off to. It's cold though, his feet are freezing. He sighs, but he can't bring himself to be upset about it. He feels like he is waiting for something to happen, something to change suddenly. He feels a little bit void, and a little bit disconnected, as if life isn't as real anymore. As if being cold and sleeping on the floor won't have any consequences at all.

Ezor came to capture him, yet she hides somewhere in the castle. She had him, yet she still let him go. She left, yet she didn't. Shiro is confused, but he doesn't bother trying to get an answer. Why doesn't Ezor just do her job and take him with her? She is capable of it. He doesn't understand why she stays and is mean to him—kicking him out of bed, stealing clothes, shutting him out of his room. Shiro isn't upset, he just feels a little bit sad about it.

When he awakes the next morning, there is a blanket wrapped around him and Pidge and pillows stuffed beneath their heads. He is not sure whether it was Ezor's doing or not, and if it was, it only adds to his confusion rather than solving it. He doesn't feel cold and sad anymore. He hugs Pidge close, drifts off to sleep again, and feels warm and comfortable.   
  


Ezor messes around with the training bots Shiro and Keith are up against. Or rather, she messes with the one Keith is dealing with right now. The bot moves way more erratic and irregular and in a way no robot programmed for combat should move. It is making Keith trip over, or stumble, or fall flat on his butt—which is what is the bot supposed to do, but the way it does is kind of strange. It shoves him, or pokes him, it even tickles Keith. Keith grows more and more irritated and disgruntled, trying to understand and read the bot's abnormal behaviour.

It's funny to watch—the robot behaving like a child that wants to play and Keith not understanding what's going on. Shiro gave up to hide his small mischievous grin, and when Keith ends up on the floor again, he laughs, tears prickling in the corner of his eyes form amusement. The simulation stops, the bots disappear and Keith stomps out of the room with a scowl on his face and a grumpy huff leaving his lips. Shiro stays behind and looks up to the control room. No one is there.

It's actually dangerous, he thinks. When Ezor is able to manipulate the doors and even the bots, who knows what else she could be capable of doing. She could infiltrate the whole ship, and no one would notice. Still, all she does is playing some pranks. Shiro shakes his head and leaves, but he smiles nevertheless.   
  


Shiro starts talking this night. He can't tell whether Ezor is in his room or not, whether she is listening or not. He doesn't know, and he has no way to find out. So he just pretends she is with him.

"You know," he tells her in a quiet whisper, "it's amazing."

No one answers him, no noise or sound but his breathing is to be heard while he remains silent. He decides to like it that way. He chuckles, just to hear himself chuckling.

"You could completely destroy us, no one would know or even notice. Yet you don't. But you could. You could do so many things..."

It's not necessarily good things. She could also kill and murder. She could do anything, really. What she does though, is to sit down next to where Shiro lies on his bed. He smiles when he sees her.

"Why?" Shiro asks her.

"Because I vanished, didn't I," she says, but the way she says it makes Shiro wonder. It's not a question, it's a statement tinged with a bit of bitterness and sadness. "In the end, I can do whatever I want, right? It doesn't matter, because I don't even really exist, do I."

She sounds hurt, and Shiro realises just now that he may had upset her. Maybe she goes around messing with him and the others because she wants to proof her point.  _ It doesn’t mean that you won’t be there anymore _ , she had said. Maybe she just wants to teach him a lesson, because she might not really be there, yet she is. The bruises on Shiro's side he got from being kicked by her can confirm as much.

"I've been forgotten so many times, because people think I'm not there," she mumbles, "But I am. I never truly vanish, no one does… You’re the first who had assumed I’m present, rather than-"

Shiro sits up so abruptly, Ezor jumps up in surprise as well and stares at him, startled by his sudden movement. With huge eyes full of realisation, Shiro stares back at her as if in awe.

"Everything your being caused is your light," he breathes and he doesn't care Ezor doesn't understand, because finally, he does. "And the lights don't even dim."

Only those who do not exist yet, or not anymore, carry no light at all, but Shiro does. He is not his original, he is not "Shiro", but he also is not no one, he is a person on his own. A person little of colour, for now. It only means he can gather more colours to shine within him.

Shiro stares at Ezor—with her colourful appearance and her ability to be void of any colour. He can become like Ezor.

"Ezor," he speaks up. "Why exactly does Lotor want you to capture me? I'm not the Black Paladin, I'm not part of Voltron."

He could be sad about it, and a part of him is. He knows, he remembers being the Head of Voltron, but he understand he has never been. Ah—maybe that's why the Black Lion chose Keith over him? He is not the same as the one who piloted her before. He smiles, because he could be sad about it, but having the freedom to choose, he decides he wants to be happy. The sadness arises from the original, not from himself. It's good that way, he doesn't want sadness to shine within himself.

Ezor doesn't answer him. Not verbally. She just pecks his cheek and winks. A tiny gesture, Shiro could as well have missed it. Yet he doesn't, and so he smiles.

"It's because I'm me, right? Not even really an existing person, and at the same time I am."

"I'll be leaving," Ezor tells him—and really, that's all she needs to tell Shiro. He knows Lotor is not like his father. He knows Lotor has some secret plans. If Lotor needs a clone of "Shiro" to find out what there is to be found out about "Shiro", then he’ll go with Ezor.

“What about your friends?” Ezor asks him when he gets up and follows her.

“I’ll give them back what was taken from them, I’ll find ‘Shiro’. This here, it’s his place to be, not mine.”

“So… you do want to disappear?” Ezor grins at him. Shiro grins right back, a bit sheepishly, a bit wickedly. Remembering how he looked like he wanted to erase his whole being just a few days ago, Ezor feels pride swell in her heart.

“I’d be happy to,” Shiro hums and finds that his words are true.


	3. Chapter 3

Shiro is still angry, but at least he feels exhausted as well. Tired, burnt, beaten. He sighs and looks up. He can see junks of metal trash drifting into the wide endless emptiness of the universe behind the windows of his stolen rescue pod. Remnants of the cruiser he had destroyed, bits and pieces of its dark corpse. He had killed the Galra, and saved the prisoners for once. He huffs a spiteful laugh, a twisted grin tugs on his lips. Finally, he had saved those meant to be killed.

He was meant to be a monster. Looking at the wreck he had made out of that giant ship, he really doesn’t feel any different from before. Still a monster. Just tearing apart different things. He had hoped he’d feel different as well. Feel a little bit more. He wants to feel more.  
"It’s not that you are not able to feel more than what you do right now,” one of the prisoners speaks up. It seems Shiro has been mumbling without noticing. The small creature looks up at him with his blind eye. It’s disgusting, this creature, with it’s shapeless muddy grey body and its gurgling bubbling voice. Shiro, however, doesn’t feel anything but content relief for having saved its life.

"You’ve been taught how a monster feels—is supposed to feel. When really… What do they know?” the creature asks him. “You can just learn more, there is still so much you can learn how to feel about, the universe is old and big and full of emotion.” When the creature blinks with its empty eye, Shiro stares right back.

One good thing about feeling empty inside is that you are always able to put in your heart whatever you want. Right now, Shiro wants to always remember this quiet strength of will. This feeling of having done something good and being proud of it, despite the world around him ending up in chaos because of what he did. When he looks outside, looks at this shattered world of destruction drifting lifelessly in a black void, he smiles. Finally at peace with himself.

Then a huge white ship appears out of nowhere, upset and unsettled voices make the air rustle and crickle with angry static noises through the transmitter they must have hacked into— _ Shiro, can you hear me? … You can't just leave like that! … Shiro are you okay? _ —and Shiro is back to growling, as if the ship that had disturbed his peaceful moment would shy away if he just hissed at it.

Another ship appears, the prisoners he had freed anxiously mutter and hustle around and grow more and more restless, more and more scared. It’s a Galra ship. Another voice joins the chaos.

"Hey there," Shiro hears his own voice through the transmitter, and everything goes eerily silent. “It’s nice to meet you. I’m Shiro.”

Shiro is taken aback at first, but then a smirk creeps on his lips, and he replies to his voice, “Huh, me too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Feel free to follow/unfollow me on [Tumblr](https://hapskyscribbles.tumblr.com/) and/or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/HapSkyScribbles)!


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